Re: Wild Cardinal Tetra
The health of Cardinals as found in shops or from wholesalers varies greatly.
I used to own a fish shop and I always bought wild Cardinals by the box(~300) from the cheapest suppliers I could find. I expected them to be run down and very emaciated and I was rarely disappointed. I had the luxery of a spacious back room where i quarantined all incoming stock and bred my Discus.
I found that if the newly recieved cardinals received generous feedings of newly hatched Artemia and sometimes it was necessary to treat them I could reduce my losses to a few per cent. This even though i was working with fish in such poor condition. It allowed me to make much more money than if i merely put them in the healthy sales tanks and passed them on to unsuspecting customers only to have them return unhappy because all their Cardinals died. I let my competitor do that.
The entire period they spend from the day they are caught in the wild until making that last trip to your tank is so stressful that many fish can not survive that last change. take your time and quarantine your Cardinals as I have explained and you will find they live and can do so for quite a few years.
Old fish breeder. SA Dwarf Cichlids, Hypancistrus sp L260, L333 and Peckoltia L134 breeder. Also Sturisoma, Dwarf Corydoras spp, wild Discus and Killiefish. Like breeding Characins and wild Betta spp too.
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